Cuba - Day 4 - Pandejas and the Wacky Tabaccy

Woke up today with no real plan.  Fair warning - not many pictures today.  Our goal was to grab breakfast at the Casa and then head out early to Revolution Museum (round 2) to avoid the lines and then maybe hit up the rum factory and the cigar factory.  I turned on the tv while Damon was in the shower – and got a whopping 2 channels.  Cuban news & Animal Planet.  We understand there are 8 possible channels people can watch – 4 news, 1 Animal Planet, and 3 others. 

We headed out with all good intentions – we learned that the cigar factory only does tours from 9-1 and since it was out of the way from the other things we wanted to do, we decided to go there first.  We ended up back at the hospital street food driveway café for breakfast - $2 for both of us to eat a full breakfast with coffee and juice - and I'm pretty sure we were over charged by $.40 but we let it go. 

We went to the Poop Palace roundabout to hail a taxi.  The first taxi that stopped just couldn’t understand where we were trying to go and eventually gave up and left us.  A second car pulled over a minute later – an older man in a "classic" car.  He faked like he knew where we were going and for 5 CUC (a new low price), we just got in.  I'm pretty sure he wasn't even a taxi driver - but that's how we roll.  He eventually got us to the Partagas cigar factory using a combination of maps on Damon’s phone along with what we refer to as Cuban GPS, which involves rolling down the window and asking everyone we pass if they know how to get where we are going.  It look about 3-4 sets of directions, but eventually we found it.  The factory was in the neighborhood of Central Havana, which as we were learning is a more run down area – not very touristy, and not currently undergoing much re-hab.  The neighborhood was a little bit scary, but given that scary looking neighborhoods can be anywhere in Havana, we didn’t think twice – I think I’ve mentioned before that no matter how the neighborhood looks, we’ve never felt unsafe anywhere in Cuba – even while carrying all of our money with us.  We tried to buy tickets for the cigar tour but quickly realized that unbeknownst to us, 1) the tour times changed from 9-1 to 11-2 this day only.  Apparently they had a staff meeting and since there is no internet and no way to check time changes, well, we just had to go with it.  And 2) you have to buy tickets from a hotel concierge at any of several hotels, all of which are at least 2 miles away, and, ironically, in the exact location we planned to spend the rest of our day.  So off we went walking back to the hotels in Havana Vieja to go buy our tickets.

We ended up walking the same route from day one – the section that I called the depressing section - and felt like Cuba experts - we can frogger across the main streets like champs now and I have yet to trip over random piles of debris or fall into one of the many huge holes on the sidewalk.  There was one hole in the sidewalk that we passed several times over the course of our trip – it was a hole about 1 foot square – not sure how deep it was, but someone had just dragged this massive chunk of concrete about 4-5” thick and plopped it on top of the hole.  So I guess tripping over a giant chunk of concrete is better than falling in the hole.  I’m proud to say I did neither.

It took three hotels to find one where we could get cigar factory tickets and given that this was a “fancy” hotel, we decided to use the toilet since you never know where the next one might be. (Yes, I know, more commentary on the toilets).  The bathroom in the hotel was like hitting the jackpot - stall door with a lock, toilet seat, and, wait for it, double ply toilet paper!  You know I jammed like half the roll in my pocket for use later in the day!!!

Since we were closer to the Revolution Museum than the cigar factory, we went there first.  On the way, we were stopped and interviewed by at crew from ABC Miami doing local piece on Cuba - today they were interviewing people about the high hotel prices and other accommodations and they wanted to talk to Americans.  They said we would air in Miami that night.  We will link it if it actually aired (NOTE:  the piece did air, we were on tv for about 10 seconds – we each got a full sentence in.  I initially refused to link it because it was just an awful profile shot of me and I am that vain, but Damon is making me link it, so here you go – we are the last few seconds:   http://www.local10.com/news/cuba/tourists-seeking-affordable-hotel-rooms-in-cuba-face-tough-challenge- ). 

During the interview, we talked with the reporter guys for about 15-20 minutes and uncovered that they are living temporarily in Vedado just a few blocks from our Casa.  Small world story - as we were comparing notes and describing the Casa where we were staying (keep in mind there are literally thousands of Casas available to rent in Havana) one guy asks us if our building was green and then pulls up a picture of our Casa on his phone and said their friends had just stayed there the week before us.   What are the odds that we all stayed at the same place???  Crazy.

Moving on… we finally made our way to the Museo de Revolcion which was formerly the presidential palace pre-revolution.  As is the norm, the palace/museum was in significant disrepair.  Not sure if this was on purpose, but both the inside and the outside of the building was riddled with bullet holes from the day of the overthrow in 1959. 

This museum is not really up to American standards.  Many of the rooms were empty, some of the building was being re-habbed, and there were a few exhibits.  There was an elevator shaft with no doors under construction – just sort of open in the middle of the room. 

There was a fair amount of anti-American propaganda which was interesting to read since we usually only hear our side of the story. The "Wall of Cretins" made fun of some of our past presidents.

What few exhibits they had were almost all in Spanish - except the anti-American stuff, which usually had sub-titles.  We looked through the exhibits and visited some of the Warcraft in an outside exhibition (the Granma yacht that took Fidel and 81 other fighters to Cuba for the Revolution), some American plane debris from aircraft that Americans denied were ever in Cuba, and some tanks with bullet holes. 

Despite the crumbling and the bullet holes, I have to say that this must have been one heck of an amazing palace in its heyday.

After the museum, we went to find lunch and found a little Paladar with outdoor seating at a good people watching corner.   We had an older waiter - one who had no interest in trying to speak English, so in a rather humorous exchange, Damon once again attempted to speak Spanish.  Now most of it was pretty good – we each ordered food and ultimately got what we wanted; but at one point, Damon wanted to add a glass of juice, which he asked for in Spanish.  The waiter looked at him strangely and brought him an ashtray.  Juice is “jugo”, Damon said “juego”, the word for fire is “fuego”; that’s as close as we can come to figuring out the ashtray.  Damon’s Spanish is a source of constant amusement to me.  I think most of the time he thinks he is saying something in perfect Spanish like, "how much to take us to the museum" but what the person on the other end hears is something closer to "how foot chair yes dirt". Or something like that.  But kudos that he keeps trying!

Now, back to the cigar factory.  We had been walking for hours already, so we experimented with yet another mode of transportation - the Pedi cab.  This particular fare negotiation truly marks my shining moment in fare negotiations.  I got the guy down from 10 CUC to 4 CUC pretty quickly.  He muttered a word (“pandejo”) under his breath and I knew it was a bad word.  I later looked up to mean "asshole", so I think we got a good deal.  Now, before you go and agree that I’m a cheap asshole and that we can afford more and what is a few dollars, and I was in fact driving too hard of a bargain, keep in mind that we learned a few things from Debra (our Casa host the night before) that drove the negotiation. 

Debra told us specifically that when tourists pay more for cab rides, it jacks up the prices for the locals and makes it harder for them to buy food, get taxis, etc.  Our host actually said that our freedom with money does make it harder for Cubans even though here is more money flowing to individuals.  10 CUC may not be much to a tourist, but when taxi drivers get used to 10 CUC for a ride, 10 CUC becomes the new rate, thus eliminating locals from being able to use taxis.  I was, in fact, doing the community a service.

Also, let us not forget that we have limited money.  Remember, there is no easy way to get money here and there is no way to use a credit card.  If/when we run out of cash, well, not something we want to experience.  It took us a few days to figure out how to not get ripped off, so we are in better budget mode now.  We are trying to find the balance…

So – Pedi cab back to the cigar factory.  The Pedi cabs are pretty much all homemade – built from any spare metal like bits of rebar or pipes, held together with wood planks.  They generally have umbrellas or awnings to keep the sun out, and the passenger seats can be airplane seats, old car seats, and plastic seats - pretty much anything you can plant your butt on.  And the bikes old and all only have one gear.  Our guy’s chain kept skipping on the uphills.  I was so nervous that we were going to break his bike for 4 CUC.  I just didn't want it to break while we were in it.  It didn’t.

The Partagas cigar factory is an OSHA nightmare - but a pretty cool building and really interesting tour.  We ended up on a private tour with a woman who was puffing on a Cohiba the entire time.  Every cigar is rolled by hand and the whole process was really interesting.  The only part we were not allowed to see is where they mixed the leaves to make the specific recipes for each cigar brand.  I believe they made 7 different cigar brands at this factory, including Cohibas.  She encouraged us to go onto the factory floor where we could stand and watch everyone roll – I think she said 150-200 per person per day completed.  Not one machine in the entire place - everything by hand.  Of course I couldn’t help but think that every Cuban cigar ever smoked has been touched by a good 5-10 people (without gloves).  Slight ick factor, but I don’t smoke cigars so not really a big deal.

Our guide told us to take pictures of anything we wanted.  So we did.  Each worker is allowed to take 5 cigars per day as a bonus - they can do whatever they want with them.  Given that some cigars go for more than 20 CUC each, they can make some sweet extra cash on the side, or develop a very expensive cigar habit.  Not surprisingly, our tour guide took us into a little back room at the end of our tour and sold us some of her and probably her co-workers secret stash of cigars.  We checked later and we got pretty good cigars (“Cuaba”) for a decent price.  And for anyone asking, Cohibas are much harder to find since everyone wants them, and really expensive, so we did not bring any of those back.

After cigars, we walked home and crashed hard for a few hours.  Eventually went out for dinner at a Paladar around the corner that served delicious Iranian food, delicious dessert, and they had a belly dancer.  When in Cuba…

Final thoughts – we didn’t have as much “people to people” interaction today, but it was still a good day.  We’ve been running on full steam for four days and needed a little break.

Tomorrow we head to Trinidad bright and early.  And here is a picture of a dog in the street.  Just because.